David Zalubowski/AP Photo
In my On TAP last Thursday, I discussed GM’s plans for two new electric-battery factories, currently under construction in Ohio and Tennessee, which will be joint ventures between the company and the South Korean battery manufacturer LG Chem. When I wrote, GM had just announced that since the plants would be joint ventures, the workers could decide whether to go union or not, despite the fact that GM factories in the United States had long been covered by national contracts with the United Auto Workers. GM’s announcement left open the possibility that the company could oppose a unionization campaign with a campaign of its own, much as Amazon did at its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse. That, to put it mildly, roused the UAW’s ire. And given the Biden administration’s expressed desire to provide funds for the manufacture of electric cars, and to have that work done by well-paid union workers, it seemed almost a provocation aimed at the administration—whose own federal procurement policies don’t have to patronize non-union manufacturers.
Well, that was then. Today, GM tweeted out the following statement:
That’s still not a guarantee that the company will remain neutral when the UAW asks workers to sign union affiliation cards, which, if the company recognized those cards as numerically sufficient to establish a union, would secure union wages and benefits for the plants’ workers. But it’s certainly a step in the right direction, and the UAW is now seeking to sit down with the company to ensure that management won’t step on its workers’ right to go union.
